


give my name again, speak your name again.

by ftwnhgn



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sharing a Bed, repressed middle-aged men showing their feelings basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26356939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftwnhgn/pseuds/ftwnhgn
Summary: There, in the middle of his narrow mattress, lay a man he would recognize even with a fog so dense between them that he could hardly see his own hand, even blind or deaf he would know him, and Obito lay curled in on himself in the middle of Kakashi’s bed like he had never been gone —been dead, Kakashi needed to remind himself while his heart twisted in his chest like a shock of electricity burned through it — with the unmistakable rise and fall of his chest showing just how alive he was.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito
Comments: 4
Kudos: 107





	give my name again, speak your name again.

**Author's Note:**

> to the few poor souls who have my account subscribed, don't mention it.
> 
> who'd have thought? not me! i spent the past few days digging back into this ship after years of not doing so and decided to write a little something for them, you know, because middle-aged men and their repressed feelings is my jam. some very loose (i mean it) post-canon fix it because we do what we want here.
> 
> title: the killers ft. k.d. lang. - lightning field
> 
> (beta'd the whole thing myself, but if you find mistakes they're yours now too.)

The sun’s already set when he finally gets home to his apartment, the air cooler than it was in the day and enough for him to consider layering up in the coming days— summer can feel like an endless drip in Konohagakure but once it’s gone he knows it is mostly gone, and the cooler weather usually comes faster than one usually thinks. Kakashi gives the clear night sky one last look with his eyes — and he will never get used to this, after two decades of only seeing with one it is still strange to do so with both again all of sudden despite the great peripheral awareness it now gives him, which would be useful if he’d actually _take part_ in missions. Then he unlocks the front door and steps into the quiet of his place.

The routine that follows does feel like coming home in its own weird way, his body working on its own accord after a full day of more meticulously maintained paperwork and his open and clear distaste for it that everyone seems to take great amusement in. He shrugs out of his flak jacket and his boots by the door without much fanfare and takes the short way to his bed in the gray static of half-dark in his apartment with a similar ease, the distant light of the street lamps filtering in through the windows along his way. He loses his shirt and trousers next and switches into an old pair of track pants, taking off the hitai-ate and his mask last when he’s already at the edge of the bed.

The human-shaped lump under the duvet would be unmissable to him even in pitch-black darkness and Kakashi looks at the mop of mostly dark hair, as well as Obito’s relaxed face turned into the pillow, with a fondness he can feel down to the core of his heart before he shakes himself out of it and climbs over him onto the mattress. Finding his usual place between his best friend and the wall, molding himself against Obito’s back as he shifts them around enough with as little movement as possible to find the edge of the one pillow they seemingly have decided to share and the rest of the duvet before Obito would end up hogging it come morning and Kakashi would not even mind because he usually runs hot anyway.

His eyes are already closed when Obito nudges him with his elbow lightly a little while later, Kakashi having known the other is still awake. He doesn’t answer but he knows Obito doesn’t need his cue to say whatever he so diligently stayed up for to stay. As long as it’s not another shinobi reform discussed to death Kakashi is willing to hear him out about basically anything. His guard’s low and it’s not like he cares much about that anyway. ****

“I deserve a _little_ effort,” Obito grumbles, something nearly indistinguishable from the rustling sound of the duvet against his mouth.

“This is a no-effort arrangement. Did I forget to tell you about that? My bad,” Kakashi replies, already on the verge of sleep from bone-deep exhaustion. He never thought paperwork would take more out of him than S- or A-missions, but he could swear he’s been ready to nod off since early afternoon.

Obito has the nerve to snort at that, Kakashi can even feel it, and he rolls his eyes more by muscle memory to the sound than anything else. Even after two decades and the guilt in the marrow of his bones deciding every movement for him unless he is in a fight he can’t help that — it’s as much nature acting inside of him in response to Obito than it is to nudge one of his legs between his, shuffle so close that his shoulder is braced against Obitos’s, the tan skin of his own arm curling over a paint-white counterpart, and his hand curling around his best friend’s shoulder.

As much as he has fucked up on every possible front there is, and Obito has as well, he wants to think he deserves to have this. Maybe it’s selfish, but he never said he _isn’t_ at the very core of his body and soul. That’s what growing up with nobody but yourself as company will do to someone. He’s stopped making excuses for it a long time ago.

“You didn’t even leave the window open. You usually do that, you lazy bastard,” Obito mumbles, tilting his head so his warm cheek touches Kakashi’s naked arm.

“I left the window _unlocked_. It’s not like you can’t open the damn thing for yourself,” Kakashi retorts, voice a bored monotone cadence that he usually has for everything. It’s stupid that Obito feels charmed by it, he blames it on the late hour more than anything else, because no chance in hell will he admit that the literal crumbs of effort Kakashi puts into his interactions with other people is making him feel a warmth inside of him that can’t even be matched by the warmth of a house, or even a bed. He’s been stupidly fond of the guy for as long as he can remember ever since Kakashi entered his life and he could hold a coherent thought.

“As I said, _no effort_. You know, you didn’t even do much,” Obito muses, his voice free of malice but undeniably giving him away with the fondness of it all. Kakashi’s fingers flex against his shoulders, the calloused pads of his fingers a bracing weight against Obito’s arm there. He doesn’t let himself be irked by the warm huff of breath against his own naked back when he continues, “We’ve known each other for nearly three decades. I gave you my eye and died for you and even your team, like, _thrice_.”

“Twice,” Kakashi interjects absentmindedly, but Obito ignores his try for semantics as he usually prefers to do. The man’s never been prone to be number-savvy and he’s seemingly not starting now in the middle of the night.

“ _Semantics_ , Kakashi. As I just said, I died for you more than once _and_ then returned to you too, from another dimension no less. What did you do?” He asks, though his voice is light and he can feel Kakashi’s smile against his skin before the other man gives him his answer.

“Made enough of an impression for you to want to return to me, it seems,” he says, but it is filled with all the unsaid things that have transpired between them. They have made amends with the push and pull of their mutual heartache as well as their shared and inflicted losses over the years and it’s only because of that that teasing each other like this is even still possible despite the scars marking Kakashi’s body and the mismatched disarray of Obito’s own.

They have always been friends first before anything else. Teammates too. Before being rivals, before being enemies, and surely before being lovers. Dying for each other and risking their lives for each other has come easy because of this bond having existed for as strongly as it did after being forged by so much pain on both ends. Late nights like this ending on a sweeter note than all the ones before they returned to each other did.

“Your eyesight sucks, though,” Kakashi adds belatedly, as if that negates Obito’s whole point, but his voice is crackling dry from tiredness and all Obito can do is reach around to flick his shoulder before he turns his whole body around to curl into Kakashi’s chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Shut the fuck up,” Obito shoots back, his mouth pressing a kiss to a lightning edged scar on Kakashi’s upper arm. He knows where it came from, knows the history of Kakashi’s body better than his own these days. It’s easier to remember what is there rather than what is not after all.

“Maa, I’ll leave the window open,” is the last thing Kakashi says more into Obitos’ hair than to anyone at all before he drifts of to sleep, more than happy to feel the other’s body as a steady presence against his own.

—

The first night it happened lies a while ago already. It has been months after the war, when the efforts to save what was left of the village and rebuild everything that needed to be rebuilt have still been rampant but at least not as pressing as they were in the direct aftermath. At least the first few weeks Kakashi could act like the appointment as Hokage has come with _actual_ action, making plans and even carrying them out along the others, but he could only fool himself so much after having seen what the work entailed when not in the direct aftermath of a war. And sooner than later he realized he only helped with the hands-on work of getting the village back to a functioning and livable place before anything else was simply because he was one of the most valuable jōnin around and mostly uninjured and not because it was actually part of his newly appointed position.

At least he had enough say now that he could work on Konoha’s progress as one of the more advanced and reshaped places in their area. While it was a huge amount of paperwork for him rather than getting his hands dirty, the headache he felt behind his temples whenever he got another thing done that he thought necessary while they were already in the midst of rebuilding felt worth the trouble. It also conveniently got his mind off of things.

It has been a few months since he had to say goodbye to Obito again, knowing this time would be the last time for good, and while he has gone through all of it before the obvious _finality_ of it all drove such a tear into him that no weapon nor attack could mirror — something so burning and horrible that he knew right away he simply could not acknowledge it for this time he couldn’t fall apart under it. No, he had Konoha’s people counting on him. He had work that needed to be done and that wouldn’t end until he’d pass the title on to the next poor soul falling victim to the position he inherited.

It was an easy calculation to make this time around, to shove all of that resurfaced heartache and grief down into the loneliest and coldest corners of his conscience so he’d better not trip over it on accident again. Too many people depended on him for this to ever happen without preamble, and he could pull himself together into enough of a resemblance of a functioning man that he could even fool himself along with it. This time around he already had over a decade of practice.

Not to mention that he and Obito managed to lay all the buried misunderstandings and unanswered grievances to rest this time. They parted on mutually relieved terms as far as their past was concerned and after their fight even the pressure of the tension Obito’s decisions after his presumed death put on them has dissipated into the air along with most of the grief Kakashi could never shake until then. It felt like they had finally made the full circle ever since he lost his eye for Obito and Obito gave him his own in return, even going so far as to go all the way on that front after so many years of Kakashi having to carry these remnants of Obito inside of himself on his own. And for all the sadness that came along with losing his best friend again, there has also been a never before peacefulness to it.

Obito could reunite with Rin and Kakashi could go on living his life for them like he did before, living in their name and for their honor but without the tears the old cuts left behind in him.

Then why did it hurt so bad in the moments he was on his own and Obito’s absence caught him off guard all over again, grief crawling up his veins like lightning without the thunder to forebode it?

Maybe it was the loneliness, or still the bitter waves of guilt he could never shake. Or maybe he has just gotten too old to find excuses for his pain and his body has decided to roll it over him whenever he had a moment for himself. It never made him function less whenever the next day came, he still got up and got dressed and got to work because he knew no one else would do it but him, and then he returned to his apartment and sometimes he fell asleep right away and other times he stared at the wall or out of the window until he felt as emptied of his own emotions as he usually feigned to be in front of other people.

That night, he got home to a low breeze coming in through a window in the kitchen— a window he could have sworn to be closed when he left in the morning, trained long enough as a shinobi to not be as foolish as to simply leave open entryways so obvious in his own place. Some habits _do_ die hard, or never, and he thought this to be one of the more reasonable ones.

His steps were silent and slow, but once he crept all the way up to the window he found nothing. No traces of an intruder and nothing out of the ordinary below as he looked out. It was all perfectly normal, as normal as every other day he had gotten home recently.

Which only made him more suspicious.

He moved through the few rooms of his apartment in a similar fashion and after coming up with nothing in the living room or the bathroom, he found his suspicions to be correct when he made it to his bedroom. There, in the middle of his narrow mattress, lay a man he would recognize even with a fog so dense between them that he could hardly see his own hand, even blind or deaf he would know him, and Obito lay curled in on himself in the middle of Kakashi’s bed like he had never been gone — _been dead_ , Kakashi needed to remind himself while his heart twisted in his chest like a shock of electricity burned through it — with the unmistakable rise and fall of his chest showing just how alive he was.

Kakashi could do nothing but stare at him, the surreal reality he had suddenly found himself caught in overwhelming him in a way not even his grief could in the past months, and his whole posture loosened enough that he couldn’t help but sink to his knees.

The thud that came along with the movement was loud enough to stir Obito awake, or maybe he was awake the whole time and waited for Kakashi to acknowledge his presence, but he didn’t open his eyes when he reached out with his hand and his fingers touched Kakashi’s chest.

“You’re home,” Obito said and while Kakashi has never been one for crying he felt himself moved to tears by the sound of that voice, by the fact that he heard it again at all. “Finally.”

—

They had finally talked about it a few days later after it had become obvious that while Obito would hardly say freely what he had been doing in the past months (though Kakashi had an idea), he would vaguely explain how he survived. Kakashi didn’t need a full rundown or an explanation, really, and was fine with just having Obito back at all, but he couldn’t lie that he had been curious ever since that evening he found him in his bed.

“I just — I think I still had unfinished business here,” Obito tried to sum it up after he finally made sense of some of the questions Kakashi had felt free to ask him in the quiet dark of his apartment, neither of them moving too far from each other since Obito’s return. When Kakashi moved to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, he naturally got another one for Obito as well and handed it over to him, leaning against the sink while he listened to Obito, who stood across from him leaning against the kitchen table.

“Unfinished business?” Kakashi repeated, voice low, but a subtle quirk to his brows that admitted a reaction. He wasn’t wearing his mask either, so Obito had a front-row seat to even the subtlest of reactions that were detectable on his face.

It felt all very unguarded, very _new_.

Obito nodded then, putting his empty glass onto the table behind him before he looked back at Kakashi again, Kakashi watching him in the warm light of the kitchen light, taking his time to really see the changes this new lease on life had on his friend. Obito has had so many transformations over his life, so many visual markers that set several stages of his life apart from each other may it be through masks, the tone of his skin, or the color of his hair. Not too much had changed since the last time Kakashi had seen him though, the biggest one possibly still seeing Obito alive in the first place, the obvious signs of him breathing boggling Kakashi’s mind still. Besides that his hair was the same dark shade it used to be when Kakashi first got to know and lose him, only the tips of it growing paler and ending white, and the obvious restorations made to his body after the boulder got him still there. But otherwise he looked the same — looked just like _Kakashi’s Obito_ used to, would have if he’d gotten the chance to grow up like Kakashi did but Rin never got the chance to either.

The thought startled Kakashi because Obito was right here, grown up and alive in his own way, and that should suffice after the total wreckage his last disappearances had wrought on Kakashi, so complaining seemed absolutely fruitless. Stupid, even. His heart seemed to agree, the happy surge it couldn’t seem to stop making whenever he payed attention to Obito, or even when he didn’t, a dead giveaway.

Kakashi only asked once and waited for Obito’s knowing smile before he curled a hand in his best friend’s shirt and pulled him into a kiss by the hem of it. _No figment of his imagination then_ , Kakashi thought, as he tasted the light rumble of laughter behind the row of Obito’s teeth for the first time.

—

They have not let go of each other since then. It is like a promise or a vow neither of them has said out loud, but Obito is there whenever Kakashi returns from another long day of work and he only ever leaves after Kakashi left in the morning as well, an unspoken understanding between them that they wish to not part from each other in the time they have been given now. Kakashi is acutely aware that Obito might never wish to show his face in Konoha ever again, he understands the decision maybe more than most, but his sole wish has always only been for Obito to be happy and if that is a part of it it is a small price to pay to have him there and with Kakashi at all.

Any price would be manageable as long as he’d get to fall asleep next to Obito and wake up tangled up in him, and he’d be more than willing to pay for it anyway. Even the damn day-to-day work seems durable with what he knows follows before and after, may it be simply crashing face first onto the mattress and falling asleep while Obito maneuvered them into their designated positions —- Kakashi between the wall and him with his arms around him and Obito in front of him, their bodies plastered together at any possibly point with no space left between them when they’d fall asleep and at least their legs entangled when Kakashi woke up after Obito. Or something as elaborate as coming home a little earlier closer to the end of the week and never taking the chance to sleep in on weekends for granted, holding on to the few hours he’d have left over for him and Obito that they don’t have during weekdays.

It is all horribly domestic and Kakashi finds that he loves every single second of it.

He has spent most of his life living alone, being alone, working alone even in the grand scheme of things, and now that this has changed he does not think he ever wants to be alone again. Having Obito back in his life is a luxury beyond measure or reason, but he could never say that he’d want it any other way, that he’d want anybody else but him. He never wanted, really, has left a part of himself behind during the third war when he lost Obito for the first time and then every single time all over again when they have been ripped apart by his mind or by their opposing understandings of the world or even by the shared loss that weighted on them both in a similar heaviness. He has lost so much of himself to grief, he just wanted to regain some of those parts to this — to this man, to this love, to this life he now has. Even if that would sound absolutely corny if Kakashi would ever say it out loud, which is why he pointedly doesn’t.

He is pretty sure Obito knows it anyway.

The sun is a seriously picturesque light source against the unexciting make-up of his bed, but it finds a much more enticing use in illuminating the different shades of Obito’s skin against the still rough hours of mid-morning, the shift of his muscles and the flex of his hand in Kakashi’s hair that Kakashi can only make out through the visible ripple of movement in his arm reaching up as Kakashi sinks his teeth back into the bed-warmth of Obito’s hip, scraping over the skin there with more gentleness than one might assume but that fits the hour, and pressing a smile and then a lingering kiss to the same skin he just turned a shade closer to purple.

It is his favorite past-time on weekends, these long hours in bed, and he can’t find it in himself to complain about anything else unless he has this — Obito cursing his name up and down, pulling at his messy hair while looking at Kakashi with a perfect combination of bloody murder and an adoration Kakashi knows to be traceable in his own dark eyes, and he crawls back up over Obito’s body to kiss him soundly, their mouths slotting together perfectly after all this time.

He hums into the kiss, pleased as he is, reaching one hand up to push some of the lighter strands of Obito’s own hair out of his face to have a better look at him. “Yeah, not a bad view,” he concludes after a silent moment of them just looking at each other and he can feel Obito’s knee digging against his thigh before he can even begin to smile.

Smile he does though, right against Obito’s mouth as the other curses him again with a strained “Fuck you,” following another dig against Kakashi’s ribs this time and Kakashi has to hide his face against the curve of Obito’s throat, the smile only growing sharper — _lupine_ , a white wolf here after all — and he only says, “Trying to,” in response as he goes for both of Obito’s hands and places them over his head, pads of his fingers against the palms of the other’s hands.

“It’s not even _noon_ , I hate you,” Obito tells him solemnly, but there is the obvious telltale of a different kind of warmth in the slight rasp of his voice, something rough and welcomed. Kakashi has been looking for it unconsciously for most of his life.

“No, you don’t,” Kakashi replies as he smiles up at Obito once more for good measure, nothing ever more than a hint but one nonetheless, and he places another kiss against Obito’s throat before he begins to lower himself back to where he came from. “You love me. You said so last night.”

Obito shakes his head, but one of his hands moves down to curl around Kakashi’s neck, makes him stop and exhale. “Debatable,” he says when they both know there is nothing to be debated between them anymore. All they needed to say has been said.

Kakashi leans into the fingers around his neck leisurely, apparently having forgotten his previous plan, keeps getting lost in the way the sun cuts over Obito’s cheekbones, over the pale white of parts of his skin like breaking on white cliffs, maybe, or porcelain. The other parts of him tinted nearly golden that leave Kakashi a little breathless, if he’s honest.

Yeah, he thinks, there’s nothing to debate here anymore.

His forehead presses against Obito’s abdomen then and he breathes in the scent of his skin, the familiarity of his body and his presence after going without for so long, the sheer and stupid serendipity of the whole thing. And how he’d do it all all over again just to end on this outcome. How he feels like he is a little more himself again, a little more whole, with every touch or word or look Obito shares with him.

“I’m a lucky bastard,” he breathes, more mouthed against skin than said out loud, but by the grip of Obito’s fingers against him nothing that has been missed.

“Yes, _you are_ ,” Obito agrees, the smile audible in his voice without Kakashi having to look up at him to see it. They do know each other.

—

Kakashi wakes up a few hours later to an empty bed but with a note sticking to the edge of the mattress where his mask has also found its way to in the mess of the late night and this morning — an occurrence not as unusual as it might appear to the untrained eye.

Picking the little paper up and holding it away from the light, he finds an admission turning their little back and forth from a few hours ago pointless as they both knew it to be in the moment already.

He doesn’t know where Obito has gone to and he doesn’t ask, but he knows that Obito will undeniably return to him come the end of the day, and that is worth every one of his relatively short absences. It is how Kakashi wants to live his life now, with what he has right in his grasp.

It has never seemed so much like home than it does now.

“ _Semantics_ ,” he mumbles at the note before he gets out of bed.

**Author's Note:**

> are kakashi and obito technically in a long-distance relationship here? discuss. 
> 
> hit me up to talk about all the childhood and teenage nostalgia in social distanced time, idk, leave a comment if you want! I love to chat and I don't bite and I love to hear people's thoughts! either way, thank u for reading!
> 
> friendly reminder: you are loved, you are enough and you will achieve great things. you are right just the way you are, a living and breathing thing. keep going. i know times are tough right now, but you keep doing your best, you keep showing up for yourself and other people. thank you, thank you, thank you.


End file.
